10 Shocking Facts Of The World’s Most Dangerous Cult

Many people do not believe in cults. Despite the fact that very real cults have existed throughout history, many ordinary folks like to cast them aside as just a “conspiracy theory.” The problem is that, in many cases, such thinking is akin to an ostrich voluntarily dunking its head in the sand. Cults exist, and some are truly dangerous.

One such cult is called the Order of Nine Angles. This organization has links to neo-Nazi and left-wing anarchist groups, plus its strong adherence to the “Left-Hand Path” has earned it accusations of human sacrifice and murder. Examining this group involves a peek in at the world of true radicalism—a world where Satanism, extremist politics, and hard-line Islamism cohabitate.

10 Origins

The Order of Nine Angles (ONA) was founded in Great Britain by a man named Anton Long. At the time, Long and others formed ONA out of a diverse collection of occult groups then centered in England. According to Long himself, as a child he traveled all over Africa, Asia, and the Middle East. Here, in the latter area, Long began studying religions and taught himself Greek, Arabic, and Persian.^[1]

By his own admission, in the early 1970s, Long found attraction in the darker side of society, and at some point, he began committing various crimes. Before long, this blossoming occultist fell in with other British witches and warlocks, many of whom claimed descent from Britain’s original pagans. Indeed, beginning in the 1980s, the ONA began publishing tracts and articles claiming that their brand of “sinister” occultism had roots in the original “solar paganism” of the ancient Indo-European peoples. As such, Anton Long and priestess Christos Beest claimed in writing that their Satanism was an attempt to revive Nordic, Anglo-Saxon, and Celtic paganism in the face of Christianity. The group published a book entitled The Black Book of Satan, which promised its readers a sevenfold path toward reaching the sinister.

9 Distinction

Lazy journalists who became aware of the ONA linked them with Anton LaVey and Michael Aquino. Founded on Walpurgis Night 1966, LaVey’s Church of Satan was all about showmanship and self-promotion. Indeed, the group’s official “bible,” The Satanic Bible, is more philosophy than theology. LaVey rejected the existence of Satan and instead espoused the philosophies of Friedrich Nietzsche and Ayn Rand.^[2]

Michael Aquino was the founder of the Temple of Set, an occult order based in Southern California. Aquino, a former officer in the US Army, preached what he called “esoteric Satanism.” The Temple of Set broke off from the Church of Satan in order to pursue their path toward “enlightenment” without the supposed hang-ups of Judeo-Christian morality. For the followers of Aquino, the goal is to become an individual god.

The ONA believe in none of this. They are theistic Satanists, which means that they believe in a deity named Satan. For them, practicing black magic and causing chaos in the world is all part of glorifying their black god.

8 The Importance Of David Myatt

British citizen David Myatt has lived a most interesting life. Born in Tanzania and raised in East Asia by a civil servant father, Myatt began practicing martial arts at a very young age. From here Myatt, began studying the religions of the world, including Buddhism and Islam. However, instead of becoming a priest or a scholar, Myatt first became a political activist.

Beginning in 1969, Myatt became involved in the British Movement (BM), a right-wing group founded by Colin Jordan. Then and now, Jordan was a controversial staple of British politics. During his heyday, Jordan supported the idea of sending all of Britain’s Jews to Israel, the complete halt of all non-European immigration to Great Britain, and removing all blacks and Asians from British life. As can be guessed, Jordan and his followers got into many street battles with Labour Party supporters and immigrant groups. As such, Jordan hired Myatt to be his bodyguard.

In 1974, Myatt formed the National Democratic Freedom Movement, an openly neo-Nazi organization that published a newspaper entitled British News. Myatt was frequently arrested for engaging in street brawls. At the same time, he was also collaborating with London-based Thelemites and members of the ONA. Under the sway of Myatt, the ONA embraced National Socialist racialism and the idea that Christianity is a religion fit only for slaves.^[3]

In 1998, Myatt converted to Sunni Islam. Following this, he began trying to synthesize hard-line Islamism with neo-Nazi ideals of political revolution.

7 Links To Right-Wing Groups

Thanks to the influence of David Myatt and other British political activists, the ONA began collaborating with right-wing organizations all over Europe. Sometimes, this collaboration was indirect, with groups independently adopting the ideals and ideas of the ONA.

One intellectual influenced by the ideas of the ONA is French journalist Christian Bouchet. In 1991, Bouchet, a mainstay of right-wing politics in France, founded the Nouvelle Resistance, a revolutionary nationalist movement, and the pan-European European Liberation Front. Bouchet’s ideas have not only been informed by the Aryanism of the ONA but also by the American author Francis Parker Yockey and the founder of “Esoteric Hitlerism,” Savitri Devi.^[4]

In New Zealand, the Black Order, founded by author Kerry Bolton, took direct inspiration from the ONA, while the German group the National Socialist Underground were similarly influenced by ONA. Just this year, one of the longest trials in German history concluded when Beate Zschape of the NSU was convicted of ten counts of murder.

6 Links To The Left

The ONA considers itself open to differing views. As such, membership in the ONA includes members who subscribe to left-wing politics. While most authors have focused on the group’s connections to right-wing organizations, the ONA’s theology, which embraces chaos, has been adopted by some anarchist groups who routinely engage in acts of vandalism.^[5]

According to the group’s own words, the ONA “upholds anarchism” as the most compatible with black magic. For ONA adepts, the initiation of anarchy is desirable because tragedy and trauma create wisdom and enlightenment. As such, ONA members are against organized society and its institutions. This idea has been adapted by several small anarcho-communist groups. However, unlike the ONA’s connections to the right, its connections to the left are less tangible.

5 The Atomwaffen Division

In several articles, the American neo-Nazi organization Atomwaffen Division has been linked to the ONA. In March 2018, The Daily Beast published an article detailing how the Satanist wing of the Atomwaffen Division had declared war on the group’s non-Satanic adherents. The article, written by Kelly Weill, said that the group’s supposed leader, James Cameron Denton, has posted ONA images online in the past.^[6] Denton and his followers reportedly see no contradiction between Satanism and the ONA (which encourages its adherents to infiltrate any extremist organization), while other members of the Atomwaffen Division do not agree.

The Atomwaffen Division are not some fringe group, mind you. They’ve been known to place flyers on American college campuses, are well-armed, and have made threats to attack the US government and American electrical grids in the past. At one point, the group was accused of playing a role in the murder of college student Blaze Bernstein. Bernstein’s killer, Samuel Woodward, had been a member of Atomwaffen Division, but he admitted in court that he targeted the Jewish Bernstein because he was gay.

4 The ONA’s Goals

The main goal of the ONA and its followers is to bring about the so-called New Aeon.^[7] The ONA is convinced that the modern world has failed and that global capital, consumerism, religious extremism, and environmental destruction are the result of Magian (Judeo-Christian) culture and politics. The New Aeon will come about as soon as society returns to its tribal roots.

The ONA also believes that the new age will be inaugurated by Vindex, a revolutionary hero who will restore justice. Vindex will be, like Achilles, a semidivine warrior with a preordained mission. Once Vindex reaches his destiny, the New Aeon will come forth.

The ONA believes that its “sinister” ideals must be spread as much as possible in order for the New Aeon to come. That is why ONA members are encouraged to join radical organizations with predominately young membership.

3 The Dark Gods

According the ONA theology, a series of sinister deities known as the Dark Gods exist. These gods exist in the acausal realm, which is connected to our own causal realm. The acausal realm is bounded by acausal time and has more than three spatial dimensions.^[8] These Dark Gods have the ability to enter into the minds of adepts in a process that is somewhat reminiscent of Lovecraftian fiction. Indeed, also akin to Lovecraft is the ONA notion that a new age will come when the Dark Gods of the acausal realm bleed over into the causal realm.

One of the Dark Gods is Baphomet, the mother and bride of Satan. The goat-headed Baphomet is, according to the ONA, associated with the feminine and is the creator of all demons. Students of history may remember that the Knights Templar were accused of worshiping Baphomet by at least two sources.

The other Dark Gods of the ONA pantheon are completely unique to the group and do not have any obvious connections to the Western occult tradition.

2 The Seven Fold Way

The core tenet of the ONA is the concept of the Seven Fold Way. The Seven Fold Way is a hermetic hierarchy of practitioners. Each category of the Seven Fold Way represents a certain level of occultism. Keep in mind that the ONA’s brand of occultism demands sharp aestheticism, scholarship, and physical endurance.

The seven stages of adeptness for the group are: 1) Neophyte, 2) Initiate, 3) External Adept, 4) Internal Adept, 5) Master/Mistress, 6) Grand Master/Mousa, and 7) Immortal.^[9] The exact number of ONA members in each category are unknown. At best, it has been theorized that there over 1,000 members of the ONA throughout the world.

1 Human Sacrifice

The ONA is infamous in the Satanic underground as one of the few organizations that encourages human sacrifice. To the ONA, sacrificing human life is “powerful magick” that releases an individual’s energy, which can be stored and reused by magicians.^[10] In their own mythology, the ONA’s ancestors in pagan England practiced human sacrifice every 17 years in order to maintain “cosmic balance.”

Members of the ONA believe in “culling,” or committing sacrifices wherein the victim self-selects their own death. Some former members of the ONA claim that Myatt is still active in the group and actively encourages fellow members of the cult to commit crimes and murders as part of magical rites.